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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Discovering Irish Origins

You must determine the County or Parish from US records before you can cross the sea to search in the old country

Gravestones are a great source for finding Irish origins

In fact, my friend R. Andrew Pierce wrote a book about it called The Stones Speak: Irish Place Names from Inscriptions in Boston's Mount Calvary Cemetery (NEHGS, 2000).

I don't do a lot of Irish research so this was a thought that I tucked into the back of my mind. I relegated it to the spot "stuff you might find in Boston."

Well, on New Year's Day I found myself in need of some fresh air and exercise. I ended up in the local Catholic cemetery for a stroll. This is a place I usually never go unless I am looking for someone specific. This cemetery was begun in the late 19th century and is "too new" compared to most of the historic cemeteries that I visit.

In the late 1800s many Irish immigrants settled in my town after finding jobs in the local shoe and boot industry. Discovering gravestones for the Irish was no surprise. But finding their place of origin on their gravestones really caught me off guard. This far out from Boston, how could it be? I learned a thing or two on New Year's Day.

I can't say that I will find my way in to "modern" cemeteries very often in the future but if I do I will be on the lookout for the gravestones of the Irish immigrants. What a treasure finding the location of their birthplaces in Ireland!

6 comments:

I wish my Irish lines left information that easily found. It took my 10 years and a blog reader to find baptismal information on a Irish records site. Now, I am stuck in County Cork, IRE.

I do go to a Irish genealogy meeting (I try to get there monthly), and they offer advice on where to go next for more research assistance. Unfortunately, I have to hold off on ordering more records so it has put a big halt on my Irish research.

However, I did just send an email to someone who said they would take my information and check the registers to see if they can find more information for me. It will cost me a small amt and I can send it when I have the extra cash to do so. So, I sent all my information from Cork and hope to get a reply in the near future.

Can you imagine the tombstones being the only source of an immigrant's origins standing for many years , and then , smashed to the grounds or worn off till illegible ?? For months , I have been trying to decipher the writing on a tombstone of an Irish immigrant . Sometimes local genealogical & historical societies transcribe the stones before they wear out and there is a unpublished book of cemetery transcriptions on a shelf somewhere.

I would point out that up to now, Andy's advice was true. You needed to find the place of origin here before attempting to look at records in Ireland. However, now that the Family History Foundation has their searchable database with a majority of Irish records (http://www.rootsireland.ie/), you can start with just a name and date. It's getting close to having all of Ireland in the search, but a few counties are still missing. However, this is how I found my Irish Great Famine immigrant--her tombstone just has her name and her dates.